Bird feathers inform Bar Miller interior by Polonsky & Friends
New York design studio Polonsky & Friends has lined this tiny New York omakase restaurant with burl wood veneer panels, while its counters and cabinetry are coloured to resemble bird feathers.
Designed as a sister location of Rosella, an East Village sushi spot that opened in 2020, Bar Miller is located a few blocks away in Alphabet City.
The owners brought back Polonsky & Friends to complete the interiors so that the two outposts could share the same “warm, welcoming energy”.
Although the menu borrows from traditional sushi craft, it’s not authentically Japanese, so the designers wanted to steer clear of any tropes that might deceive customers.
“The design had to incorporate local and craft-centric elements and honour the food’s Japanese inspiration, but not fall into any folklore since the team isn’t Japanese and the menu is untraditional,” studio founder Anna Polonsky told Dezeen.
The restaurant only seats eight covers, which surround the open kitchen in the centre of the compact space.
Deep blue-green Avocatus stone – a rare quartzite with a leathered finish – forms the entire bar counter
A custom ceiling pendant by Madrid-based designer Pablo Bolumar is suspended above the counter like a string of pearly beads.
On the walls, panels of burl wood veneer are framed in white oak, which matches the refinished original parquet floors.
“We were able to sand back [the flooring] after it was hidden for years in the previous restaurant,” Polonsky said.
A trio of panels feature a custom wallpaper drawn by artist Hollie M Kelley, displaying the feathers of an eastern rosella bird.
Kelley also drew the icon for the sister restaurant, a western rosella, which has different colours in its plumage.
The maroon hues in the wallpaper are echoed on the cabinetry behind the kitchen counter, differentiating the food preparation area from the blue-green of the dining space.
Other details include a panel of vertical wood slats for storing plates above the sink and moulded-glass scones shaped like scallop shells.
The bar stools were crafted by Maderas Collective in Nicaragua and upholstered by Ecua in Queens, while ceramic vases were sourced from New York-based Fefostudio.
In the bathroom, green tiles laid in a herringbone pattern cover the walls and a rice paper pendant light hand-painted by Claire Dufournier hangs from the ceiling.
For those looking for more Japanese restaurants with notable interiors, New York City has plenty of options to choose from.
Check out the Rockwell Group-designed Katsuya close to Hudson Yards, Rule of Thirds by Love is Enough in Greenpoint, and Tsukimi in the East Village designed by Post Company – formerly known as Studio Tack.
The photography is by Nicole Franzen.
Located in the heart of Atlanta, The Kendeda Building was designed to make a statement. Created for the Georgia Institute of Technology, the building’s design also became an expression of its value system. These ideas are shown on display both inside and out, from the massing to material choices like mass timber. Working with Lord Aeck Sargent, a Katerra Company (LAS), the team at Miller Hull wanted to demonstrate that rigorous design and sustainability go hand-in-hand.
The concept of The Kendeda Building is inspired by the vernacular southern porch. Taking this element and expanding it from the residential to the civic scale, the team imagined a “regenerative porch” that could create a cool microclimate on the surrounding site. The resulting structure invites visitors inside to rest, learn and to look up as they learn about the space around them. Inside, the building continues the concept of learning by example through the design itself. As the team explained, gravity and lateral elements are left exposed creating a visual register of the structural forces at work.
The Kendeda Building hosts a variety of learning spaces to welcome all students and disciplines from campus. Traditional classrooms as well as laboratory space and meeting rooms fill the building. Each space has generous daylighting, operable windows and is free of Red List chemicals. Indoor environmental quality was the primary driver in the design of these spaces to support learning. The Kendeda Building is Georgia Tech’s first timber building since its earliest load bearing masonry and timber structures from the 1880s. Climate smart mass timber was selected for its significantly smaller embodied carbon footprint, compared to concrete and steel systems.
The design of the Kendeda Building demonstrates that ‘Living Buildings’ are possible in even the most demanding climates. The 
Yet, the project achieved full Living Building Certification in 2021 after proving its net positive energy and water performance during its year-long occupancy period. At the heart of this was the “Regenerative Porch” — a structural system and PV canopy that generates more than 100% of the building’s energy demand and captures enough rainwater to meet 100% of the water used in the building. At the same time, the design blurs interior and exterior conditions while providing weather-protected outdoor classroom space. As the first Living Building of its kind in the Southeast US, the project set a new standard for design.
The Kendeda Fund provided ongoing funding to support programs in the building that engage local Atlanta communities beyond the university. The atrium, lecture hall, roof garden, and multipurpose room were all designed to be made available for community events. As the team outlined, Georgia Tech’s mission is to maximize the impact of the building by exposing as many students as possible to the project. After learning in a building expressing such a strong position on resiliency and sustainability, the hope is that they will take those values with them into the future.
